Customers still flocking to ‘landmark’ Malic’s Deli
Long before Steve Matyas studied business at several prestigious universities and then rose to the executive level of a large office supply chain, he learned how to keep customers happy at Malic’s Delicatessen on Wyandotte Street.
Matyas started working for the family business as a bus boy when he was 11 years old. He waited tables while attending high school student at Centennial.
“Three-quarters of what I know about customer service are things I learned at the deli when I was younger,” said Matyas, now president of North American retail for Staples Business Depot.
The iconic Windsor deli was briefly on the market this month when current owners Yan Hao and husband Jerry Sagat contemplated retirement.
“This one is too tough for me,” said Hao, who has owned the restaurant since 2013. “I love this place. It’s fun, but it’s time.”
Hao and Sagat later had a change of heart and took down the listing. The business, the building and second-floor living quarters had been advertised with Century 21 Realty for $379,000.
Through the years, politicians, bureaucrats, sports figures, office workers, labourers and neighbourhood regulars have occupied the familiar red vinyl seats.
Sagat points to a back booth that was a purported favourite
of a young hockey player named Wayne Gretzky.
When the Windsor Spitfires played hockey at nearby Windsor Arena, Malic’s stayed open late to accommodate a hungry post-game crowd.
The doors finally closed at 2 a.m., only to unlock again at 6 a.m. for a robust breakfast rush.
It all started with Elizabeth Malic, Matyas’ grandmother.
She was a well-respected caterer who decided to try the restaurant business and enlisted the help of her two daughters and their husbands.
Together, Mary and Dave (Steve’s parents) and Anita and Sid Prut turned Malic’s into the destination for a great corned beef sandwich.
“They were the Tunnel Bar-BQ of corned beef,” said Rick Williams, the owner of Williams Food Equipment, referring to Windsor’s famous rib eatery.
Williams’ father, Dick, serviced and sold kitchen equipment to Malic’s virtually since they opened.
“They’ve always focused on what they’re doing well there, whether it’s Montreal smoked meat, pastrami or corned beef,” Rick said.
“It’s always been the same consistency. Why would you want to change the concept? It’s too successful.”
Attention to quality was entrenched as a founding principle by Elizabeth Malic.
“Quality was important to my grandmother,” Matyas said. “She wanted to make sure people were satisfied. My dad also got a real sense of accomplishment in seeing the same faces over and over again. That’s what he liked.”
Matyas’s parents had no background in running a restaurant whatsoever. Dave was a chemical engineer and Mary was a chartered accountant.
Still they thrived in their new, if unfamiliar, work environment, and stayed for some 25 years until retiring.
Another hard-working husbandand-wife team, Nimer and Marlene Khalaf, took over in the mid’80s until they sold it to Hao and Sagat.
The restaurant runs seven days a week and Hao opens and closes it every day except for holidays.
“I like to work but this one is too tough for me,” she says now.
Sagat adds: “I’m pulling 70, I want to go to Florida for four months.”
Malic’s is “one of the oldest continuous operating restaurants in Windsor,” according to former Windsor Star food writer Ted Whipp.
“Everybody will relate to this restaurant, not just the foodies, not just the street crowd, not just the neighbours.
“It’s one of the few restaurants where you can use the expression ‘landmark.’ ”
Before he attended University of Toronto, Queen’s, Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Harvard, Matyas learned “the value of a dollar” from working for his father.
“I wasn’t going to walk around like the owner’s son,” he said. “So you showed up 15 minutes before your shift and you worked hard the whole time.”
He was impressed by the parade of powerful developers and landowners who came in to discuss mega-deals over eggs.
“I was awestruck by some of the big players,” he said.
“I met more than one mayor coming in early in the morning for breakfast. We had a really interesting group of clients. Very eclectic.”
Through the years, the breakfast menu was dropped. Now the restaurant opens at 10 a.m. and closes at 9 p.m.
The dinner crowd has fallen off since Windsor Arena closed, but lunchtime is busy as ever.
In a nod to her Chinese heritage, Hao added won ton soup, spring rolls and a popular meat pie to the menu, but other than that, the meat and potatoes of the place, if you will, remain the same.
Hao learned quickly that Malic’s fiercely loyal customers don’t like change.
“Once I changed the ketchup bottles on the tables and people got mad,” she said.
“I can’t replace anything.”